Chris Stevens
Forum Replies Created
-
The original question is the perfect illustration of the unfounded fear surrounding FCPX.
Did film editors in the 30s argue over what brand of razor-blade they used to splice the celluloid? Did 18th century playwrights argue over what animal quill they wrote with?
Did Shakespeare ask: “Show me something sick that’s been written with an Ostrich quill. Because until you do, I’m only writing this stuff with duck quills.”
Haters keep hatin’. Lovers get creating. Hug the X and it’ll hug you right back. Let’s edit.
-
“It’s the very ‘inefficiency’ of FCP7 that immerses me in a project. It’s endlessly scrubbing backwards and forwards through the rushes that means that when I’m recutting a scene, I know there’s that shot of that thing, which I never thought I’d use, which an assistant editor wouldn’t have flagged, which I wouldn’t even have looked at, but which turns out to be just the shot I need for this sequence.”
It’s not an original thought. Walter Murch worried about this exact same thing when switching from a flatbed to a computer editing system. You can read about it in his wonderful book, In The Blink of an Eye.
Murch argued that the old flatbeds forced you to scan through loads of footage to reach the material you needed. Because of this, sometimes you would come across footage you might otherwise have discarded, or you might subconsciously absorb images to generate new ideas.
Of course, Murch then switched to Final Cut Pro. So we have to assume the convenience outweighed the Zen qualities of the flatbed for him.
Imagine how much more thoughtful our editing would be if we hand-drew every frame like a Disney cell-animator. Then we’d really get ‘immersed’ in a project. Personally I’m going to embrace the evolution of technology and use FCPX. If I want to get ‘immersed’ I can always print out the rushes, sellotape them all end to end and run them across my lap, simulating a flatbed.
Let’s leave the past behind.
-
[Bob Bonniol] “GIANT fan of yours Chris. Alice for iPad is awesome…
The universe is naturally entropic. Adapt or don’t. Whatever you decide to do, the world will proceed.”Thanks, Bob. Glad you like Alice!
Agree with your thoughts here. Will be fascinating to see where FCPX stands this time next year and then re-read these posts.
-
[Tom Olsen] “I doubt they will add those features.”
The argument I’m putting forward is that Apple don’t need to add these features. A third-party plug-in market will blossom around the edges of this meteorite impact zone (FCPX).
The ‘indies’ get more affordable access, the ‘pros’ get better specialist tools in the long-run. Give it time?
I think we’ll both win in the end.
-
[Lucas Merino] “When your 3rd party plugin doesn’t work, who are you going to call for support?”
I’d hope the modular system would police itself for ongoing compatibility and inspire third-party tools.
I think it’s a mistake to assume that Apple chose to strip-down the FCPX feature set out of malice for a ‘pro’ user. From my perspective, as an ‘indie’, it looks different: What has happened is that Apple has concentrated on providing a solid foundation for editing, while (relatively) niche functionality has been implicitly outsourced to third-parties.
This is good for several reasons:
1) It will provoke rapid innovation in the plug-in industry
2) These plug-ins will be much more advanced and more regularly updated than Apple can manage alone.
3) These specialist tools can become more focused to address individual ‘pro’ workflows.The end result is that the core cost of the FCPX ‘backbone’ is low for the majority of users who don’t need these legacy tools.
It’s also cheaper for the ‘pros’ in the long-run too. Now you can decide whether a seat requires a full suite of plug-ins or just the ‘backbone’ of FCPX. You’ll also get much better tools for dealing with your current process, supplied by third-parties.
Apple did the same thing with iOS. Rather than attempt to provide a complete feature set themselves, they implicitly outsourced that to third-parties. Consider that the iPad didn’t even ship with a calculator app. Let’s wait and see how the industry addresses the plug-in possibilities here.
-
I’m real. I think. This is me. Been reading the forums here for a few weeks and felt that the other side of the debate wasn’t being represented here. The ‘pro’ has been representing his case, thought the ‘indie’ should too.
-
Isn’t it going to be the best of both worlds?
The ‘indie’ gets to keep costs down with a set of strong core-features from the FCPX-backbone, the ‘pro’ gets niche-support using tools from third-parties who have much more vested interest in supporting those legacy workflows.
Then, eventually, the ‘pro’ can evolve into the indie.
-
I see in the ‘indie masses’ the strongest and smartest men who have ever lived. An entire generation armed with digital SLRs and cheap edit gear.
While the ‘pros’ ingest tape from spools, the ‘indie’s’ camera firmware is hacked to obscene bitrates by Russian code-jockeys. They run solid-state workflows, self-manage color-correction. They deliver straight to YouTube. Their 100mbit footage looks like a million-dollars, but it cost them just a few hundred. While the ‘pros’ rewind their digi-beta decks, the ‘indie’ screens his work to an audience of millions across the planet.
The original FCP had the ‘indies’ chasing complex workflow, working jobs they hate so they could buy software with a feature-set they didn’t need.
They are the middle children of history, with no purpose or place. We have no great war, or great depression. The great war is a spiritual war. The great depression is our lives. We were raised by television to believe that we’d be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars — but we won’t. And we’re learning that fact.
Get editing before the ‘indie’ gets even.